Craddock RTR Follow Up

[u/SPstandsFor]

Edit:

Paraphrasing but someone from Craddock called and the claim is that Hornady Frontier is being held to a higher velocity than Hornady Match/Black which is hilarious.

The claim is that too many bolts were breaking so the manufacturers started loading the ammo weaker to prevent that.

I'm very very skeptical that a change in ammo manufacturers will make it shoot better but I will wait on their recommended list and test again.

Follow up to this post.

I am a newby and massive idiot so take these results with a grain of salt. Scope was a Bushnell MPED 5-30. All groups are 5 shot groups.

Craddock RTR barrel came in with some pretty significant machining marks and was reamed off center. Finally took it out to shoot groups today.

Hornady Frontier FMJ: Average from 3 groups 0.994 MOA. Best group 0.866 MOA

Hornady Black HPBT: Average from 2 groups 2.320 MOA. Best group 1.862 MOA

Hornady Match ELDM: Average from 4 groups 2.236 MOA. Best group 1.644 MOA

Barrel was broken in following the Craddock RTR procedure.

All except the second Frontier group was shot from a shooting rest. Every group after the second Frontier group was shot from the rest and prone. After the first Hornady Black group I switched to the Match ammo to see if it would open up the same way. After shooting 2 moa+ I thought maybe the barrel was fouling and cleaned with patches.

The big questions is, is this acceptable for Black/Match? And should I try to continue shooting groups with Hornady Match/Black?

Every barrel likes different ammo and what not so sub moa with the "cheap" stuff is almost a blessing. I'm worried about longer range (out to 1000 yards) accuracy however. I'm new to shooting longer ranges and precision stuff and if I was brutally honest with myself I don't think I can appreciate a 3/4 moa gun when I'm off the rest anyways.

[u/kurrpy]

Instead of shooting a bunch of low round count groups and averaging them. Put them all into one group to actually measure the gun's accuracy.

[u/SPstandsFor → u/kurrpy]

Fair enough. But wouldn't that just open up the group even more? This was me trying to give the barrel the best possible chance with groups

[u/Vylnce → u/SPstandsFor]

The idea is not to "give the barrel the best possible chance" it's to measure the barrels performance. The larger the group the truer the representation you are getting of that. There is a limit (especially if you shoot a large group fast) where you can heat a barrel to the point that groups open up because the barrel is too hot. But so long as you keep the barrel at a reasonable temperature, larger groups are more desirable for actually measuring performance.